OP Wurst Division

Memorial Day is almost here! Bring on the summer sunshine and backyard (or balcony) bbqs of burgers and hot dogs and picnics please! In between bbqs, you can also get your fix on for fun American food at OP Wurst, which now has 3 locations. I’ve visited and enjoyed a couple times the haute hot dogs of OP Wurst at Pine Street Market, but given how that indoor gourmet food court is the home of several mini restaurants, there is always a lot of hustle and bustle and it doesn’t seem like a place to sit down for a long spell with sausages and drinks. Now I do have a place to do both though – OP Wurst Sausage Bar on Division has opened and with the larger kitchen, offers more options then the Pine Street location, has a big outdoor patio, plus offers a full bar. Here’s a look!
OP Wurst on SE Division, several of their gourmet haute hot dogs OP Wurst on SE Division

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Rosemary and Cheddar Breakfast Sausage Dip

A incredibly delicious recipe I made for brunch one weekend was this Rosemary and Cheddar Breakfast Sausage dip.
Rosemary and Cheddar Breakfast Sausage dip paired with Food Should Taste Good gluten free GMO free Multigrain Chips

The original inspiration that I only did minor tweaks came from the Food Should Taste Good website recipe for Brunch that users breakfast sausage, maple syrup, cheddar cheese and fresh rosemary. They got the recipe courtesy of Amanda Paa of heartbeetkitchen.com. My minor change as that I used sage breakfast sausage and removed the use of salt as I’m not a huge fan of too much salt and I also had some leftover sage that I minced and added as well to help highlight the sage in the sausage I used.

I’ve written about Food Should Taste Good chips before based on an event I attended and made a Mexican Street Corn dip with their Blue Corn Chips, and then again with a Caramelized Onion Jam and Goat Cheese with Sweet Potato Chips.

These  are the Food Should Taste Good multigrain tortilla chips that are paired with this dip are gluten free, GMO free, and include healthy ingredients such as brown rice flour, flax, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, quinoa, and stone ground corn as well as rosemary extract, which will echo the bit of rosemary in the dip.

And, it was a great way to use some of the leftover grated cheddar cheese I had grated (I grated 36 ounces of it for the cheddar fondue recipe I posted earlier on Monday!)

Ingredients:

  • 8 ounces of breakfast sausage
  • 1/4 cup minced onion
  • 3 cups freshly grated cheddar cheese (9 ounces)
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons corn starch
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh rosemary
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
  •  bag of Food Should Taste Good Multigrain Chips for serving

Directions:

  1. In a medium sized skillet over medium high heat, add the 8 ounces of breakfast sausage. Crumble it as much as you can as you add it to the plain skillet, and as you cook the sausage crumble it some more to break it up and stir.
  2. When sausage has just a little pink remaining, add the 1/4 cup of minced onion and continue cooking, until meat is no longer pink and onions are translucent. Drain meat (separate it from the oil that emerged – I save the oil in a container to use for fried rice or something else) and set aside to cool.
    Crumble and cook breakfast sausage with minced onion
  3. In a bowl, toss together the 3 cups of freshly grated cheddar cheese, 2 1/2 tablespoons of cornstarch, 1 1/2 teaspoons of rosemary, and 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder. If you use pre-grated packaged cheddar cheese it already has cornstarch and other preservatives in it – I recommend grating the cheese fresh!
  4. In a medium sized saucepan, combine the 1 1/2 cups of milk and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup. Turn the heat to medium and stir constantly while it warms to steaming but not burning. Once it starts steaming, add your cheese rosemary dry mix and continue stirring as the cheese melts.
    Adding the cheese to the warmed milk and maple syrup
  5. Once the cheese is melted and smooth, add the sausage and stir is to distribute the sausage evenly. Pour into a container and serve with the chips!
    Combining the pre cooked breakfast sausage with the melted cheese

This dip is so good I can imagine folding a few spoonfuls into an omelette as well. This feeds 6 people and refrigerated well – I just warmed it up before serving again. I served mine in mini-ramekins with the chips. It’s great for if you have guests staying over for a little fancy extra breakfast side, or just to treat yourself on a cold morning – I justified the healthy multi grain chips as making this cheese and mat dip totally balanced.
Rosemary and Cheddar Breakfast Sausage dip paired with Food Should Taste Good gluten free GMO free Multigrain Chips

If it looks sorta fondue-y… you’re right I thought the same thing! Obviously this isn’t vegetarian, which I wanted for my party, but for brunch for myself, sausage and bacon are fair game right?

What’s your favorite breakfast?

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